A jaw-dropping beginning melting into a sluggish middle and then building up to a cracker of a finale.

This just might have been my favourite part -

Attolia looked at Eddis’s minister of war. “How is your head, sir?” she asked politely.“Gray,” he answered cryptically.Eddis looked at her minister, curious. “Your head?” she asked.Attolia explained. “He had to be forcibly dissuaded from strangling his son.”